Lemuria: Looking for Staves in all the Wrong Places

[Guilu]

Hello and welcome to my after-action report for Age of Wonders 4! It’s my sixth proper game since release and I figure I should tell you about it. This will not be a narrative AAR like some of the others you might have seen for AoW4, but more of a classic play-by-play report with pictures. I might write a few in-universe bits now and then, but not in this first chapter.

Chapter 1: Lucky​

Lemuria’s peaks jut out of the waters, but the giants’ descendants have long since given up on trying to bring the massive continent out from under the sea.

We’ll be using a 5-player Islands map with custom difficulty: World threat and starting conditions are normal, but the three AI players on the surface are set to Very Hard. Including Artica! This is actually a pretty big map, from my previews, and I should get to enjoy a lot of Ancient Wonder fights if the Brutal AI doesn’t decide to squish me like a bug.

And here is our landing: The southern coast of the southernmost island. Wonder Architects gets us a Lair of Serpents, a quarry equivalent, just a couple provinces away. There is an underground passage just beyond it, a common sight with Massive Underground. We can see an infestation poking out to the northwest, which seems like a good occasion to see how my cryomancer leader performs.

I won't be detailing our early fights. I did play them manually, to get my feet wet. I'm still learning the game, and this playthrough will have a lot of firsts for me: First time picking Mystic, first time playing an island map, first time picking Tome of Rock.. Suffice to say, sheer luck compensated for my lack of experience.

Our Soother heroically tanks a frigid ogre in the upper right. I figure Soother HP is the least valuable, since support skills don't scale with model count.

Overwhelming Tactics provides us with 20% chance of a critical hit, meaning we should get one crit per turn on average. Which we do, and at relevant times too. The staff of frost turns out to be excellent as well, though perhaps not quite as much as our Spellshield who successfully gets double stuns every time. Cosmic Ablation is slightly redundant with Rock Blast, but it's only a minor inconvenience.

After the fighting comes the looting. We have an incredible haul:

I’m not even sure which is better!

We got The Executioner from the monster den we cleared, and the Punisher’s Halberd was in an unguard mana node our scouts cleared to the east. Liliane, our ruler, will get the halberd. That’ll leave her free to keep using her freezing ability while still threatening the enemy with 3 attacks of opportunity. Items of tier 3 and above are rare, and weapons are the most important piece of equipment a hero can have: this is an enormous boon for us.

Down underground, our scouts are quickly stopped by the border guards of Aster. They are a Tier 3 city of arcane-wielding tigrans, with several transformations I will show you in a moment. An excellent place to put our first whispering stone, though my scout will have to double back. Hopefully the city isn’t too constrained by cavern walls and I can integrate it fully into my empire.

 

[Guilu]

Chapter 2: Conquering the Green Isle​

Our adventure continues northward, where we meet our sister city, Startrail:

She has high hopes for us, but all I got is The Executioner. With my whispering stone tied up in Aster and my army nearby, our path is clear.

The war declaration pop-up is entirely too big, so I’ve taken the liberty of removing some unnecessary options.

We'll need just a smidgeon more forces if we're to take on Startrail. The obvious way is to recruit a second hero. I had briefly thought I wouldn't, for once: Our starting isle is small, and we have no path to expand underground. But Mailyn has some strong arguments, not least among which the fact she brought her own horse. She can join our siege right away.

Being one of the Elegant Tigrans of Aster, Mailyn comes with both Astral Blood (Attunement: Fortune) and Astral Attunement (Pass-through). She'll be an excellent wielder for The Executioner. Governor-wise, not only are her people Masters of Astral, granting me 12 mana per turn, she is also a Materium specialist herself, increasing our main affinity by 3. Her materialist ways don’t gel with her homeland, giving me an opportunity to gain a bunch of allegiance.

“And all day and all night and everything he sees is just Blue like him, inside and outside.” - An ancient song Leonar has heard one too many times.

With just a couple of turns of sieging, we’re ready to take Startrail by storm. I’ve invested in the Harass Defenders project, to make sure everything goes smoothly. The garrison is full of T1 units that can’t afford to lose 20HP, but they are led by a hero with Inspiring Defense. Flara Savant will be dutifully encouraging her troops from behind the walls, giving them Bolstered Defense.

The walls are holding firm, but an imprudent arcanist has poked out just beyond the pike line. My spellshield goes in for his signature double stun, which he gets, while the further enemy guards are slowed by my cryomancer hero. Mailyn goes up the breach on the right and kills a scout.

Their frontline is disabled but alive: The enemy leader Flara rushes to the center to boost everyone’s defense. The slowed pikeman chooses not to move, a weak attempt to protect their scout. This leaves Mailyn free to get a flanking attack. The enemy army falls apart quickly under our barrage, leaving just their leader.

Flara has nigh impregnable defenses physically, but not morally. With her whole army dead, she makes a run for it. She is cut down, netting us her equipment and 80 gold for her remains.

And with that, we have conquered our starting isle! It’s time to set sail and see what the greater world has to offer us.

See that crystalline tree? We’re going there.

 

[The Kingmaker]

Lovely to see another AoW4 AAR! We are few in number but we try to stick together. Keep up the good work!

 

[Guilu]

Chapter 3: The Lands beyond the Sea​

Spoiler: A letter from Julia d’Halléphèbe

Liliane, my disciple,

It is well to hear that you have made contact with my followers, and established a foothold in Lemuria. Master Tulsimer has also emerged from the Night Road, and he should contact you soon.

He had a warning for you: The witch Artica has established her domain in Lemuria. She is a powerful Athlan sorceress, and although she may have information on the whereabouts of the Staff of Inioch, she is notoriously difficult to approach. Be careful in your dealings with her.

As my scout emerges from Aster, he stops by a cartographer. As usual, the cartographer shows me some place I already know: a crystal forest off the western coast of my starting island.

But you might spy something else: a nice blue border.

For some reason Megg doesn’t have a governorate of her own? Is there a fourth hero I missed?

With Domain of the Frost Queen, Artica starts with three cities and ten levels, along with several items from the tomes of Cryomancy and the Cold Dark. Altlandis is just one of her towns, and it could probably take on our whole empire by itself. We'll try to befriend Artica for now, and bide our time. She only dislikes us by -275, so maybe there’s a chance?

Hopefully my welcome gift wasn’t a friendship bracelet like in this picture.

Our exploration continues: To our east is the Black Isle, covered in soot and ash and halflings: The barbaric little men of Urmboar up top, and the mystical cherubs of Prime below. We don't have enough whispering stones to deal with them right now, but I'm definitely considering a dip into Order. They have some lategame transformations I could take advantage of, and they’re both tough and remote enough that they’d be hard to get otherwise.

Are these “barbaric little men” really so bad?

Our main force – I only have the one stack at this point – is headed to a small island to the northeast, one that turns out to only have five provinces. On our way to the Sparkling Thicket, we meet up with another foreign ruler:

Yuri Goldthread is one of my custom characters from Age of Wonders 3. He leads High culture, Chosen Uniter Tigrans but has surprisingly chosen to be a Fanatic Isolationist this game. Hopefully that means he won’t be competing with us for the three city-states we have met thus far. His expedition leaves westward as soon as I arrive, so at least he won’t be making headway with the halflings of the Black Isle without me. Still, I don’t expect him to be a friend of mine: I want this island and so does he.

I was hoping to get some grievances by capturing the thicket before his outpost was founded, but somehow it didn’t work.

The fight for the thicket is somewhat uneventful: Seeing how the defenders have flying and pass-through, I choose to bait them back to my starting position to fight in the open field. I rock blast the wisps early to make sure they won’t be a problem and build up some star blades. The mirror mimick chooses to copy my arcane guards, probably the worst possible target it could have picked. We take a decent amount of damage, notably because I didn’t dispel Mirror Veil (which deals 50% of our magical damage back to us), but it doesn’t really matter seeing how I now own this territory and will regenerate greatly at the end of the turn.

The place was very blue, which didn’t look as good in pictures as it might have in play.

By this point I’m planning a war against Yuri. There are some issues however: First off, the game tells me his military ranking is higher than mine. With how the Brutal AI is able to conjure entire armies out of even wounded economies, that is a bit worrisome. Secondly, my tech selection is uniquely unsuited to fighting High culture units. Rock spirits and Gargoyles have a -6 spirit weakness, which means they take nearly double the damage from that channel, and they’re the only things I can spend my mana into. Thirdly, he’s already set me as his rival, and he lives on an island further north, so generating grievances for a justified war is going to be a little tough. We need that justification if we’re going to woo the city-states and keep on Artica’s good side.

Uh oh.

 

[The Kingmaker]

Yep, little chance of befriending Artica. She has a heart of ice.

Great update, keep it up!

 

[Guilu]

Chapter 4: The Artica situation​

Artica, who is already well into midgame when I haven't unlocked a second tome, has declared me her enemy. Thankfully, her Protective Sage personality includes a distaste for unjustified wars. Meaning we can still choose when and where we fight, I hope.

She has claims all over the western part of our island, and it's going to get worse.

Artica has also laid claim to the White Isle, the largest and most central of them, directly to our north. It's a nasty sheet of ice, but the part facing the Green Isle was looking quite hospitable. For some reason, her settling an outpost there did not grant me grievances even though it's within three provinces of Endrail, the city we captured in chapter 2. I blame the incompetence of our ambassadors.

We are now quite constrained: Artica owns the island to our west almost entirely, and has outposts throughout the White Isle to our north and northwest. Our armies are far from her lands, and we really can't take her anyway. To our northeast, Yuri is establishing the city of Ultopia, right next to our magic tree. As I said at the end of chapter 3, a war against him would be a risky endeavour. So, after a couple turns of deliberation, my main force heads southward: The ashen island to our east has two infestations and several wonders for me to clear, that is a lot of loot ripe for the taking.

You might notice my leader looks different: I’ve confiscated Mailyn’s hunter spider mask and taken it for myself (jade colour courtesy of the Age of Colors mod by EricDB).

Further scouting has revealed the location of Tulsimer. He's a Devotee of Good Erudite Sage, and very willing to be our friend. He is a rival of Artica, whose city of Halberg is right above his capital of Ostrovicallus. Of course, he is the one AI player I didn't set to Very Hard difficulty when I started the game - he's only on Normal. He's not going to be a great ally, he's not going to have extra resources for me to pilfer through trades.

We get a mutual declaration of friendship a couple turns later.

Still, we sell some of the equipment we got from the conquest of Endrail and use the money to declare our rivalry with Artica. This is vital if we're going to stay on the right side of the war justification balance. Thankfully, Artica seems quite happy to act as if we didn't exist: She’s established an outpost right next to the entrance to Aster. This blocks our land access to the western peninsula and establishes an uncomfortable amount of claims over our capital territory. On the other hand, we're now at 49 grievances to 0. I'm going to trust that protection for a while.

Back on our starting island, I’m clamming up. I have claimed the forest with the underground passage leading to Aster: I did not want it to be contested while I was not looking. This also pushed my claims westward as you saw above. Since I can't settle a third city, I'll need to develop the two I have. I think now is a decent time to tell you about our economy.

Our Wonder Architects start pigeonholed us into a production heavy build: The Dark Lair is a quarry equivalent that offers 25 production, and to get it I took an iron mine province. I even enlisted some of the ogres we found guarding resource nodes to help build our capital. Finally, our cultural trait offers us +20% production just for owning an ancient wonder. That's a lot more expense than I usually take on, but our army is small and crossing the water takes three turns every time. Pouring our money into development doesn't seem so bad.

I develop our food income and claim a port to the northeast, which unlocks the harbour set of buildings. The site looks ideal for building an Abbey, from our second research set: the Tome of Faith. The eastern part of our island is uncontested by Artica and Yuri, but I haven't taken the time to clear its nodes yet. Overall, we're set to peak later in the midgame, if I can manage the diplomatic situation until then.

Endrail still needs some time to recover from our takeover, and it suffers the most from foreign claims. With no ancient wonders in sight, and only a few resources, my guess is that I'll be releasing it in exchange for a better city later on. In the meantime, I connect it to our capital to gain the bonuses of Metropolitan Society. This is a materium empire upgrade that increases our incomes by 10% in all cities connected to the capital, including the capital itself. With the base revenues Calcimise gets just for being a player capital, this is surprisingly huge.

Artica’s outpost was already there, but this did not generate grievances. There is something fishy going on with this game.

 

[Guilu]

Reading a bit into the encyclopedia, I found that distant claims are indeed looser than regular claims: They only give grievances if someone founds an outpost or claims an ancient wonder. So I'm much less constrained than I thought, and Ultopia, Yuri's city next to the thicket, won't give me as many grievances as I'd hoped.

I also realised that I never gave you a picture of Artica's outpost on our island, so here it is:

I'd show you the map more, but fog of war just makes everything look awful.

I've played up to turn 35 and things are heating up; but there's probably 3 chapters until then. See you there.

 

[Guilu]

Chapter 5: Barbarians​

There’s a bit of mucking about in the water in this chapter, perhaps even a lot. So let’s get you situated: We’re just off the western coast of the Black Isle, headed towards the lair of silk, clearing several nodes along the way and cursing at the invisible tide spirits hidden there.

Now you might notice something wrong with this picture: Why did we skip the temple of the Godir in the north? Couldn’t we have tackled it? How did I know there was a lair of silk to clear? How am I going to clear the rest of the island when Urmboar’s borders are not open to me? Why am I stocking up on good alignment points?

I even freed a hero of Altlandis, one of Artica’s cities.

Well, now that we can summon stone spirits and build gargoyles that fly over the water, I figure we can quickly bring enough forces to bear to take over a Tier 3 city like Urmboar. This will please Aster and Prime City thanks to Pacification, the first empire upgrade on the order branch. As it turns out, Urmboar’s garrison is very weak: Two scouts, three sunderers and a level 5 hero. All I need is a little more cash to make the siege go by faster.

The money’s for a good cause Tulsimer, you’ll be glad you bought it!

With this business secure, I can divert my summons to other endeavours. I’ve been mustering a new force in my capital, to clear some of the eastern nodes that I initially skipped. To lead it, I have hired Beryl, a hooded archer from Prime. She can fly, but the most important part of her resume is Frenzy, which strengthens her every time she attacks. An excellent skill for ranged attackers I find, especially heroes that can save actions points with Sprint and Very Fast Movement from mounts.

The other candidate for the job was this lovely toad. +30 City Stability would have paired up nicely with our convents, but I figured I’d rather have the combat performance.

I went and did a 2v3 with Beryl and an arcanist. The trouble with Gigantism/Lingering Creators is, you can’t really wear down enemies with spells. Cosmic Ablation does not remove models when ogres are one-man units and dark warriors come in pairs.

It's all good, I cast stone skin beforehand.

This cold-blooded killer comes from the dark lair, the first ancient wonder we got from our cultural trait.

I also declined Harbingers of Misfortune when it popped up, both because it seems to happen every game and because I only had 130 knowledge/turn at that point, so this was a +30% I could hardly pass up on.

---

Turn 21 opens with the discovery of a murder most foul.

As he was returning from an exploration of the tunnels that head north from the Black Isle, my scout was ambushed. A pikeman of Yuri's forces ran down the passage and killed him. Although Yuri's empire does have a distant claim on this underground province, I'm fairly certain this should constitute an act of war. As it stands however, my good-for-nothing diplomats haven't even managed to materialize any grievances.

This isn't the only place I've seen Yuri's claims underground: They're also in the center of the map, where a troll prevents us from going further in. Somewhere under Ultopia is another outpost or city of the Mercantile Tigrans, and if my scouts get targeted by assassins like this it may take some time for me to find it.

Waiting is free master Goldthread, but you'll get your due.

My scouts have also met the fifth and final ruler for this game, Aldo of the Gilded Maw. His Fabled Hunters trait has propelled his economy ahead of Artica's, and the only thing larger than his armies is his hatred for everything and everyone. Lovely fellow. Don’t worry – he’s not our neighbour.

If you haven't been keeping track, Tulsimer is our only friend.

 

[The Kingmaker]

Lots of nice screenshots.

 

[Guilu]

Chapter 6: A throne of our own​

Spoiler: A letter from our trade liaison in Starspire

Every door I open closes when I mention your name, my Lady. Goldthread's merchant have the run of the town, and it seems they've gone to great lengths to exclude us. The Gilded Maw too struggle to spend their ill-gotten gold. I've seen many a warrior offer a great sum for a runecarved weapon, only to be rejected on dubious grounds.

We have made inways however. Further north, beyond the bog and the guardian tree, there is an entire city carved into the mountain, called Tuskheim. Their traders care little for Flarespire’s edicts, and their fighters are both skilled and disciplined. Although the Tigrans sneer at their manners, and their accounting practices leave much to be desired, I believe the inhabitants of Tuskheim have much to offer us. If you so choose, I will end our business in Starspire, and seek to establish a trading post there.

While the siege of Urmboar ticks down, let's have a look at the vassals Faithful Whispers is netting me. They're all underground, in dead ends the AI hasn't bothered with and will likely never both with. I know I said in chapter 1 that the underground was going to be huge and filled with riches, but so far it hasn't panned out that way: The game has taken the "stillborn" part of "Stillborn Lemuria" quite seriously, and every passage is blocked off by lava. As a result, all of these cities are quite restrained in their expansion.

Aster is the first free city we found, right under the green isle. Now that I've seen how weak Urmboar is, I wonder if we could have taken them on back then. I've dug out a tile to allow them to set down a couple of huts, but I never went and explored the blocked tunnel that goes northeast from here.

Tuskheim is a town I probably won't get to mention again: Hidden in a passage at the northern extreme of the map, neither Yuri nor Aldo have bothered to establish any relations with this Tier 3 city. They should provide me with some decent mercenaries in the late game.

A tier 4 city with the Angelize transformation, Prime is really quite the catch. I would integrate it if it wasn't so remote and constrained, but as it stands I prefer to stay on three cities and to spend my imperium on upgrades.

"Three" cities? I might be getting ahead of myself. The rulers of Prime are putting me to the test: If I am to rule the Black Isle both above and below ground, surely I can down a cup of poison? It is the morning of the day where I will be storming Urmboar, but the garrison is weak and the patrols are nowhere to be found. It shouldn't be too hard, I think. I drink the mixture and delegate the fight to auto-battle. I've made a note to set world threat a little higher next time, I was really expecting a tougher fight out of a T3 free city.

I'm actually going to be replacing Urmboar's population with my own. I've grown quite fond of Overwhelm Tactics, and I think it'll go very well with the centerpiece of our new technologies: the Zephyr Archer. I've taken the Tome of Wind, much maligned in some circles, and although I haven't gotten to showcase how awesome Abducting Cyclone is yet, I did unlock the wind rager.

The wind rager replaces the spirit weakness of the stone spirit with a much harder to reach frost weakness. A very needed step in our march to bring Yuri to justice, though perhaps not quite as useful long term for taking down Artica.

---

Spoiler: An emissary from the northern isles says

The songs of war echo once more! Artica, the Witch Queen of Athla, seeks to harness the power of the towers of the magi and plunge this land into eternal night. My chief, Aldo of the Gilded Maw, and the clans with him, will not let this stand any longer! He calls on you, o Lady Magistress, to join him on the fields of glory, and deliver Lemuria from those who would clasp it in chains.

The chief of chiefs has a problem: We're just past turn 20 and he's running out of hunting grounds. Since his old enemy Yuri is too far to the east, he's turned his gaze south, towards Halberg. We have the first war between player empires, as a massive fleet gathers in the North.

On the other hand, Artica has a Shrine of Smiting. I don't know where she got it from. Let’s hope it stays in Halberg.

Aldo promptly lost his southernmost city, next to the ruins of an old wizard's tower.

Naturally, Aldo turns to Artica's enemies for support. I seem to rank highest among them, and receive a declaration of friendship from the "demonic warlord". On the same turn, Tulsimer invites me to instead name Aldo an enemy of peace and my rival. He is something of a pacifist, that Tulsimer, but I think he just has it easy down in the caves where Marching Winter won't turn his tiles into garbage. Not willing to turn my back on either, I reserve my decision for a future chapter.

---

As a bonus, here’s how our empire looks on turn 24:

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

A bit fast-paced, the screenshots don't really convey the layout of the map. I feel the same problem going through the 'hundreds' of screenshots I have taken for my future AAR I might make, you take screenshots of stuff but what you really need is a map.

 

[Guilu]

A bit fast-paced, the screenshots don't really convey the layout of the map. I feel the same problem going through the 'hundreds' of screenshots I have taken for my future AAR I might make, you take screenshots of stuff but what you really need is a map.

Unfortunately the pace is going to remain a little odd. The next couple updates slow down for some of the more interesting fights of the campaign, and then we'll set sail again and just have less density of events.

It doesn't help that fog of war looks absolutely terrible, whether it's in screenshots or in-game. I'll consider using the barentz cheat if I do another one of these, just so I can show the map the way I would want.

Chapter 7: Taming the Black Isle​

I left you with a screenshot of the Green Isle on turn 24, but today’s topic is the Black Isle.

We are now the proud new owner of a large piece of real estate that needs a lot of cleaning up. Liliane needs to recover from her encounter with local gastronomy and will be staying back at our outpost, the Lair of Silk, for a while. Mailyn the Executioner has taken the head of our force heading northward to clear a ritual circle guarded by a giant and several wisps. Meanwhile, Beryl, our newly recruited cherub archer, has made landfall in the island’s south and will be clearing the way for us to get arcanium ore before heading downwards into Prime, where a lost temple wonder awaits her.

It’s going to take several turns for migration to complete and the Black Isle is a bit out of the way, so I’ve taken great care not to give our enemies any cause for war. Artica is busy facing off against Aldo in the northwest, so we should be fine.

It’s not going well for Aldo, he died soon after making landfall on the White Isle.

The small monster den is super lightly defended at this point of the game so let’s skip right to our arcanium. It’s guarded by two stone spirits, one large and one small, but more importantly, three butcher ogres. Butcher ogres are a decently common sight with our Lingering Creators realm trait, but with three of them it’s a bit hard to escape their Butcher’s Cut ability. For a single AP, it has a chance of either doing nothing or killing the target instantly. After a couple of tries, I manage to bait them into doing this on Beryl’s summoned storm spirit rather than my precious permanent units. Meanwhile, my arcanists and my archer hero have taken up position at the top of the ridge, guarded by my own assortment of rocky units.

The idea of sending my storm elemental to its doom didn’t occur to me right away.

My storm elemental manages to survive the first round of instant death attacks while the bulk of my forces pepper the stone spirits with arrows and magic. A lone lesser stone spirit on the left flank is tying up our gargoyle and spellshield, which is not an ideal cost proposition for us but it’s fine so long as the ogres are busy. The dumb brutes are running around the right flank without really managing to do real damage on anyone, and when they manage to finally kill the storm spirit there’s only two of them left. They fall without much trouble.

We’ve cleared the vanguard and are now collapsing in on the remaining ogres. I’ve got a stone spirit staying back on the ridge – I was negligent and let him take damage in an earlier fight, making him too vulnerable to Butcher’s Cut to participate.

---

The troops led by Mailyn in the north have to turn around briefly: With Earthkin providing Rock Camouflage, and my hero having a ring that provides her Universal Camouflage, a small troupe led by a frost ogre completely missed my army and decided to take a boat to Urmboar. There are a lot of lava chasms making travel difficult around here so this is a bit of an unwelcome detour: I instead bring the damaged spellshield I was holding back near the lair of silk to initiate combat.

Continuing on their way, Mailyn and her troops finally arrive at this outer circle of hell:

We’re hitting that Retry button.

The auto-battle predicted a “low-risk battle” and proceeded to lose half of my force. I saw it coming: There are three astral wisps here. Just as in Age of Wonders 3, these tiny terrors have Astral Membrane, meaning they can and will stun melee attackers for free. On top of that, they have a repeating ranged attack to hit my weak magic resistances. The stone giant isn’t so scary comparatively; his main strike is a charge attack, and the AI is not that good at getting the maximum out of those. Plus, we have a lot of melee fighters that will restrict his movement. Let’s take the reins ourselves.

We’ll be opening up this fight by bringing the phantasm warrior into bashing range.

This basin is actually pretty hard to approach for our forces: It would be easy for the giant to block the entire width of the stairs by himself. We’ll be losing some turns getting our stone spirits around the ridge on the left to try and tackle the dangerous wisps. The phantasm warrior quickly dies before the rest of the enemy force has a chance to make contact, thanks to Abducting Cyclone bringing them into our frontline. We still don’t have scroll of attunement, so only half our force gets the benefit from our cultural gimmick; Mailyn has Astral Blood giving her Attunement: Fortune instead of Star Blades.

Having learned from past experience, I send my unicorn into the fray where it might take damage so that my stone spirits don’t have to. Phase brings it right behind enemy lines, into contact with two wisp units that will have to expose themselves to a proper goring if they want to get their attacks off.

That stone spirit you see on the left will actually be closing ranks on the stairs in a second. I felt the risk of seeing the wisps converge on him and making my two stone spirits on the right useless was too great.

Top of turn 3.

The wisps respond by stunning my unicorn on its opportunity attack and getting in the giant’s way. They manage to get a few shots off, but nothing my soother can’t fix for now. This is an ideal time to rush down into the basin kill as many wisps as possible. Both of the units at the bottom of the stairs fall to our assault, although I make a misplay and bring one of our flanking stone spirits to help in the center, leaving him exposed. The second flanking stone spirit stands in defense mode next to the last remaining wisp, to guarantee I won’t get stunned before it has to move out of my zone of control. Naturally, he will be getting stunned on his attack of opportunity, just like my two frontliners who killed the first two wisps. My unicorn comes in on its turn and ends the fluttering menace, but not before I’m put into a bit of a hairy situation.

The stone giant has come behind our stone spirit and taken off half his health in a single blow. Another hit would be fatal. In addition, he’s stuck himself next to the ridge, where my melee heavy composition would have trouble reaching him if they hadn’t been stunned. This old fighter is barely phased by the deaths of his incorporeal comrades (or were they minions?) and he’s got 150 hit points to go through. I cast Stone Skin to buy myself just a little more time and converge on this remaining foe, bringing every little attack I can.

On his turn, my opponent raises his club and stuns both the stone spirits facing him. One of them is just a handful of hitpoints away from death, and I’ve only got two spots to hit the giant from. First up is Mailyn, who only has a +20% charge bonus on her second swing. Then, our third clearheaded stone spirit, who not only has higher damage than our unicorn on paper, but actually manages a critical hit. Our arcanist is next, with three shots, then our soother. She runs off on her own, outside of Overwhelm Tactics range, and manages to crit on her flanking attack! This gives me the damage I need to finish off the enemy with Cosmic Ablation. Just in time for the lossless finish.

I couldn't quite tell you what would have happened if we had done Cosmic Ablation first. Only our arcanist would have really taken advantage of it, but maybe we'd have gotten a crit from Mailyn?

With that, Mailyn’s force is free to proceed to the Temple of the Godir, which we’ll get to in the next chapter.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

The first city you conquered, in the first screenshot it is called Startrail but it becomes Endrail, but no explanation for the change of name is given.

 

[Guilu]

The first city you conquered, in the first screenshot it is called Startrail but it becomes Endrail, but no explanation for the change of name is given.

A change of ownership calls for a new name.

Chapter 8: Seethe​

We’ve placed the Black Isle under our control. The infestations are gone, the barbarians have put some clothes on, and a new city stands: The city of Seethe.

Okay, Seethe could be a lot better. This is where I learn that lava chasms make people unhappy, resulting in our small town being unstable. There’s no arable land on the island to farm, and no forests to boost a granary, so I’ll have to pay extra to make the city grow. And we do need the city to grow: Even though our people are Wonder Architects and don’t need workforce to exploit ancient wonders, we can’t annex the lair of silk and the others if we don’t reach at least the old population count. Before our takeover it was 7, and now it is 5. I’m starting to think my choice of Tome of Revelry, which I made so I could nab some of the excellent chaos empire upgrades like Lure of the Horde, might have been misguided. Especially since the halflings had already built a Carnival of Flesh. It’s too late now regardless, but it might have been good to have the Tome of Fertility, and make this place a little nicer. And maybe then we could have named it something better than Seethe.

Regardless, Seethe is our third city and completes the city cap. We have plenty of gold to finance its quarry-based growth. The island is rich: three silver wonders, one bronze wonder, three magic materials, and a connection to the capital already established for the Metropolitan Society bonus. Plus, we actually got a tier 3 town hall, which I quickly put to work making spellbreakers while I finish researching zephyr archers.

This fleet of Yuri’s probably holds the spearman unit that murdered my scout.

Mailyn is clearing the northern edge of the island, where only the Temple of the Godir remains. I’ve changed my lineup for this and removed my stone spirits, who are too vulnerable to spirit damage to face a full lineup of clergymen. We’re also condemned for this fight, which increases the damage we take and the chance for the popefish to mind control a unit. Our lineup is much lower in rank, but I do have loads of magic on my side. With a well-placed Abducting Cyclone, the enemy inquisitor finds themselves under a barrage of starblade-enhanced hits and dies on turn 2. The lightbringer tries and fails to take over our wind rager, while the tyrant knight gets entangled with a summoned caustic worm from Mailyn. I do take a wide AoE from the Shrine of Smiting, but since this is this force’s last fight before they set sail again I’m not at all worried about how much health I’ll have to regenerate. We manage to quickly overrun the enemy after their knights find themselves face to face with our pikemen.

Our arcanists make some strong moves early on to take our the abducted inquisitors.

This Divine Vengeance cast might look bad, but imagine if I had taken the stone spirits instead. We'd be looking at 40 damage per hit.

For clearing this temple, we have the option of getting an affinity boon. And since I’m focusing on a single affinity for once, I’m going to be getting a lot here. 33 stability will fix Seethe’s lava chasm problems, and 200 production will provide us with food on this ashen island and get Endrail, our second city, out of its status as an economic backwater. I actually get this exact resolution a second time next turn, in a temple underground next to Prime. My gold reserves are quickly depleted with the rush of production. I decide to spend some of the imperium we earned on the Rite of Wealth to sustain our development.

Before we take on this second underground temple however, I have to clear a crypt on the eastern side of the black isle. Liliane has recovered from the poison cup she drank before storming Urmboar, and our new hero Beryl is here with us. The fight might look a little scary with two bone dragons, but our two summoned elementals can stand up to them. Our heroes are quite strong at this point.

My plague serpent has decided to slither through the tiling here. It’ll get fixed once he gets down the stairs.

My first move is to clear some of the sarcophagus near our starting position. In each of them is a confused but nevertheless dangerous skeleton, and I’d rather fight them on my own terms while the dragons are on the other side of the pit. They are content with my creeping advance until turn 3, where I abduct one of their starting skeletons and start casting long range rituals on them. Flamestrike fails to set the wyrms alight, and they take this opportunity to land on the right side and breathe caustic bile on my frontline. This breaks another two of the coffins, creating a surprisingly massive battle in this ancient wonder.

You can see the skeleton I’ve abducted on the right. I’ll be hitting him with my frontline units momentarily, but right now I’m having Liliane, her fire elemental and the fairies cast long range magic at the main enemy force.

Turn 4 is something of a headache. I’ve reloaded the game without the small unit icons to make it a bit more legible for me.

My frontline is poisoned, but I’ve got a decent lock on their backline thanks to my tide spirit: The bone wyvern and golem can’t get past it easily. And it’s expendable too, being a summoned unit. My ranged attackers wail on the recently released skeleton and the nearby dragon, before I throw Liliane into the fray. She manages to fell the beast thanks to the Giant Slayer skill from her halberd, while the pile of animated bones that makes up the enemy frontline is thinned and stunned by our spellshield.

The second dragon is displeased with this development. It decides to fly over the battlefield and swipe at our spider and ice fairy. At this point, we’re firmly in control of the fight: My gargoyle and plague serpent finish the weakened and ineffectual skeletons in the center, while Liliane freezes the healthy but misplaced pack in the backline. My tide spirit takes down both the wyvern and the golem, having lost none of his output despite sustaining heavy damage. As for the remaining dragon, its strength cannot hide its terrible position. My archer hero Beryl has a full stack of Strengthened buffs by now thanks to Frenzy, and with the fire elemental she makes quick work of the worm.

I never did kill these skeletons, since they were a battle summon. Maybe I should put them to work building Seethe as well?

For clearing this crypt, we get the Orb of Corruption. It’s no staff of Inioch, but it is a tier 3 orb with an incredible 16 magic damage attack that repeats. I’ve never gotten an orb this good; it’s the second best in the game and it’s going to be quite destructive in Liliane’s hands.

Still, this inward focus cannot last. Tulsimer has been knocking at my door: I’ve been progressing towards an alliance with him, and he means to take advantage of it.

Next time!

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

As for the remaining dragon, its strength cannot hide its terrible position. My archer hero Beryl has a full stack of Strengthened buffs by now thanks to Frenzy, and with the fire elemental she makes quick work of the worm.

You mean wyrm don't you?